


All Covered With Sleep

by freyjawriter24



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Awake the Snake (Good Omens), Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Takes a Nap (Good Omens), Crowley's Flat (Good Omens), Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Episode: Good Omens: Lockdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:33:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25133941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freyjawriter24/pseuds/freyjawriter24
Summary: Crowley had slept for almost two months. It was time for him to wake up.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 32
Kudos: 134





	All Covered With Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> I am well aware that I’m about a week late to the _’it’s July, let’s wake Crowley up’_ party, but seeing everyone else’s cute content about this on 1st July inspired me to start scribbling. I didn’t finish it that day, but I decided I wanted to post it anyway. So I’ve finished it now, and here you go. Enjoy!
> 
> Title is part of a lyric from [The Black Angel’s Death Song](https://genius.com/The-velvet-underground-the-black-angels-death-song-lyrics) by _The Velvet Underground_ (for ... [reasons](https://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/post/186074121451/as-a-huge-velvet-underground-fan-id-love-to-know)... and because it has the word 'sleep' in it).

The alarm was set for 5am.

It was an ungodly hour, but, well, he _was_ a demon. And after two months of sleep, he’d need at least a little time to acclimatise to the waking world.

Crowley groaned and rolled over, grabbing the phone and punching the ‘off’ button. He flopped back down onto the bed, and it would be so easy – _so_ easy – to just drift off again, sleep a little longer through all the mess outside, wait a little longer for the humans to sort the chaos out on their own, the way they were good at...

But no. No, he couldn’t. There was an angel out there somewhere, probably still stress-baking his way through every dessert in all of human history, probably pacing anxiously through stacks of cakes and books, waiting for Crowley’s call. He had to get up.

A snap of fingers, and the bedroom was flooded with light. _Ergh, summer._ The sun came up so _early_ at this time of year.

His sleep-slowed brain floated a random thought to him. _Huh, I missed midsummer._ He hadn’t done that since... _No, definitely not worth thinking about that._

He grappled for the phone again, and flipped through apps to look at the news first, searching for what he wanted. _Lockdown rules, lockdown rules, lockdown rules..._

A lot had happened in the last fifty-eight days. Like, a _lot_. He flipped to Twitter next, and hurried to catch up. He’d missed the opportunity to mess with people over several different events, but it was also all still kind of ongoing. Apparently that was what happened when people had nothing better to do. _Ugh._ Well, at least that would be something to look forward to when he was lounging on the bookshop sofa later.

He checked the time. Even with his apps helpfully showing him only the most important information in quick succession, it had taken him over an hour to catch up. _Six-thirteen. Double ugh._

Well, nothing for it. He’d get up, make a coffee or something to help him wake up, laze around until a socially-acceptable time to ring Aziraphale, and then he’d probably head straight on over to the bookshop. At least it looked like the angel wouldn’t feel obliged to turn him away, now restrictions were loosening. Not that half the internet thought that was a good thing. For wildly varying reasons.

Crowley rolled out of bed, clicking his fingers again to manifest some loungewear. He reached up to run a hand through his hair, and found that it had grown.

_Huh. Didn’t expect that._

It wasn’t massively long, not quite shoulder-length yet, but it was significant. He’d have to cut it if he wanted to go back to the style he’d worn pre-lockdown, or grow it out more if he wanted to try something else. Maybe it was time for something different. Something new.

Well, he’d deal with it later, when he’d decided what he actually wanted to wear today. For now, coffee was on the menu. Fashion came second.

The door to the bedroom swung open ahead of him, and Crowley sauntered through the halls of his flat in search of some caffeine. The whole place was silent, unmoving, dust-free and lifeless, minimalist and impersonal. _Just the way it should be,_ a dark little voice whispered in the back of Crowley’s mind.

“Shuddup,” Crowley mumbled into the empty stillness. The little voice didn’t reply.

It wasn’t that Crowley didn’t _appreciate_ the flat. He certainly did – it was dark and demonic enough to fit his aesthetic in case Hell came to call, yet it was modern and chic, exactly as he liked, and it was open and spacious in a way Hell had never been – but it wasn’t _home_.

Home wasn’t echo-y and cold. Home wasn’t sharp-edged and rigid. Home wasn’t an empty flat with no bookshelves and too many flat screen TVs.

He paused at the kitchen door and sighed deeply. More grey – always more, endless grey. It suited him, really, or at least it had done while he was a denizen of Hell. But now... Now he was tired. Now he was lonely. Now he wanted to go home.

He pushed the door open and headed straight for the coffee machine. It was a shiny shock of cherry red and mirrored chrome amongst the black and slate of the kitchen counter – all the better to stand out when his brain was sleep-addled and he needed to find it easily – and he punched it on with one hand, reaching automatically for a mug with the other.

His brain hit a snag.

“Wha–?”

Something was different. Not the mug, that looked the same as always – a black reflection of Aziraphale’s favourite winged affair, one that the angel had given him as a gift a few years ago. Not the coffee, which was spurting out now into the mug in the exact way it always did, the same set of noises and sights and smells. Not the machine either, except – no, yes, that was it. The machine. There was a mark on the chrome. A beige blemish in the metal.

Crowley reached out a thumb to brush away the smudge, but it didn’t move. In fact – no, it _did_ move, just not in the way he expected it to. It moved as he moved. A reflection.

Something trickled down through Crowley’s mind, and he paused. Then he turned, slowly, slowly, towards the lounge area on the other side of the room.

Aziraphale had clearly stood up hastily as soon as Crowley had walked in. He was hovering beside the rock-hard sofa now, hands clasped in front of him, looking an odd combination of sheepish and pleased. The demon’s mouth fell open.

“Good morning, my dear.”

“A-a-angel,” Crowley stumbled, struggling to get his voice to work. “What’re you doing here?”

“Oh, I just...” The angel floundered, apparently having no answer to that question.

Aziraphale looked _nervous_ , Crowley realised, like he thought the demon might be unhappy to see him here. _No, no, can’t have that. Mi casa es su casa, angel._

“Did you want a drink, by the way? I’m making one for me anyway.”

“Oh!” Aziraphale’s eyes lit up, and he looked both relieved at the welcome and grateful for the offer. “Well, a tea would be lovely.”

“Will do.” Crowley flipped on the kettle. “What kind?”

“Earl Grey, if you have it, please.”

“Course I do. What kind of a host would I be if I didn’t?” _I have every kind of tea you’ve ever enjoyed in my presence, angel. Always prepared, me. Always ready for you._

He reached for a second mug, a plain white one this time – Aziraphale had only been here once before, it would be too fast for him to have a personalised mug already – and raised his glasses-less eyebrows. “So, good to see you. Thought I’d call later. What brings you here?”

“Well, I...” Aziraphale shuffled his feet slightly, and tightened his fingers together. “It’s July. And I rather thought... Well, I knew you’d be waking up today, so I came to say good morning.”

“Good morning, then, angel,” Crowley said with a lopsided smile, sounding far smoother than he felt. Clearly the anxiety-manifesting-as-nonsense part of his brain was still asleep. “How’s the baking coming along? Bring any to share?”

Aziraphale looked sheepish again. “I did, actually. It’s in the cupboard.”

Crowley’s eyes widened, then he turned and opened the door the angel had nodded at. There was a rectangular, tartan-printed shortbread box in there, neatly placed in the gap next to the never-used plates. The kettle whistled done.

“Uh, well, err... Fancy a biscuit with that, then, angel?”

“Please.”

Crowley finished making the drinks – sugar and milk in one, neither in the other – and plated up a handful of the biscuits. Aziraphale had brought quite a selection – shortbread, yes, but also chocolate digestives and bourbons and custard creams, all apparently homemade replicas of the angel’s favourites. The demon grabbed one of everything and spread the selection on a side plate – as if _he_ were presenting the food to be tasted, as if _he_ was the one eager to impress here. Well, he was, actually. That much was definitely true.

Plate in one hand, long fingers coiled around the handles of the beverages in the other, Crowley made his way over to the lounge. Aziraphale still hadn’t sat down.

“Uh, feel free to grab a seat. Or, um, miracle one if you’d prefer something nicer. None of this stuff is exactly made for comfort.”

Aziraphale accepted the mug of tea and gave a small, nervously-grateful smile, before perching hesitantly on one end of the rock-solid sofa. Crowley slid the plate onto the coffee table, slightly nearer to the angel than himself, and lounged against the angular leather in as controlled and distanced a sprawl as he could.

The distance in this country was being reduced to one metre now, apparently. Either end of the sofa was six feet away. Plenty of space between them.

Neither celestial being spoke. Crowley tried not to feel self-conscious about his ragged hair and under-dressed state. Aziraphale sipped quietly at his tea. The silence stretched on.

After a few minutes, the demon broke it. He was fairly adept at breaking things, it seemed. He had had six millennia of practice, to be fair.

“So, uh, when did you get here?”

“Ah, well. I suppose I wanted to, well, have the chance to greet you as soon as you woke up. You’ve missed an awful lot, you see, Crowley, and I didn’t want... Well, I thought it would be nice for you to have some company when you came back to the world. I hope I didn’t overstep –”

“No, no, not at all, angel. Like I said, door’s open to you whenever you want.”

“Right. Well. Um, to answer your question...”

“Mm?”

“A-about six and a half hours ago.”

Crowley frowned. “Wha– midnight? Why?”

“I didn’t... I mean, I wasn’t sure _when_ you meant in July, and I didn’t want to miss... What I mean is, I wanted to be here. When you woke up. I realise I was terribly rude and unappreciative when you suggested we spend the lockdown together, and I didn’t want you to think you were _unwanted_ , and well, um...”

Aziraphale trailed off, eyes staring unseeing at the mug in his lap. The hands wrapped around it were pale with how tight they were clinging to the drink, as if this small semblance of normality could counteract the strangeness of the world, the oddness of this situation. The angel swallowed audibly in the silence.

Crowley didn’t know what to say. He wanted to reach out, offer a comforting touch or something – but then he always wanted to reach out, and that wasn’t... that wasn’t something they did. Not yet, at least. It was up to Aziraphale to set the pace here. Crowley wasn’t going to risk messing this up.

So he tried to come at it sideways. Ease into asking what this was about. What _they_ were about. Where they were going to go from here.

“So, what have you been doing? While you were waiting here for me, I mean.”

“Just thinking, really. I’ve been... well, I’ve been _doing_ things a lot lately, and it was good to just sit and... _not_ do anything for a while.” He looked sideways at the demon, an uncertain half-smile dancing across his lips for an instant. “I was mostly trying to decide what to say to you.”

Crowley could barely breathe. “Yeah?”

“Well, I –”

Aziraphale stopped, then took a deep, steadying breath and a sip of tea. He focused his gaze somewhere over the coffee table, and tried again.

“I want to apologise. For not... for not saying yes to your offer. There was no reason to say no, really, other than, well...” His fingers tightened on the mug again. “I was scared, Crowley. It felt too immediate, too sudden, and we had no idea how long it would be for, and there wouldn’t be any casual way to end it if necessary, and I didn’t... I didn’t want to ruin anything.”

“You could never ruin anything, angel.”

Aziraphale didn’t look at him, as Crowley had expected. Instead, the angel screwed up his face, shutting his eyes tight and shaking his head slightly. Crowley felt a rather large rock form very suddenly in his throat.

“Everything’s still so new. We’ve never really spent much time together all at once – even with Warlock, we still went our separate ways for large chunks of the day, and you slept all night, and we weren’t... We had _space_ , Crowley, and we wouldn’t have had that in the bookshop, not for months on end. And I didn’t know what that would do to us, I thought it might... _break_... something.”

“Something?” The demon’s voice was hardly even a whisper.

“Us.” Aziraphale opened his eyes and chanced a glance in Crowley’s direction, and his soft blues were glittering with unshed tears. “What we are to each other. I’m not going to pretend there’s nothing there anymore, my dear. But you understand that it’s hard, after so long not being _allowed_.”

“I know, angel, I know.” Crowley put his hand out, gently, unobtrusively, resting on the expanse of sofa between them. “You don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for. I’ll wait. I’ll always wait for you. You know that, right?”

Aziraphale’s gaze held a moment longer, those gorgeous eyes looking straight into Crowley’s unobscured yellow ones.

They’d spent so long together, six thousand years of tentative and then blossoming friendship, the last eleven in near-daily contact. They’d even _been_ each other, literally walked into Heaven and Hell for each other, faced down the end of the world multiple times for each other. And yet now – right _now_ , in Crowley’s empty little flat, so close and yet so far apart – was when the demon felt closest to this angel. That unbroken connection, those feelings made plain – just a simple stretch of eye contact, and so much between them.

And it was _real_ , Aziraphale had admitted it was _real_ , he’d admitted they’d _mattered_ to each other. He’d said as much multiple times: at the bandstand, when _’it’s over’_ meant _’it had existed’_ ; at the airbase, when never speaking again meant more than the wrath of Satan himself; in this very flat, when they’d taken the ultimate risk for each other in facing fire and water and whatever else; in the Bentley, half a human lifetime ago, with a thermos flask and a promise of a future.

This was that future. A future in which they dined at the Ritz together, often enough that it was normal now, often enough that they had a regular table. A future in which he could casually pop by the bookshop for lunch or a drink or a chat, and there was no need for business preamble anymore, it could just be social. A future in which Aziraphale knew where to find him when he hadn’t surfaced in two months, and no matter the social discomfort, did not feel _unwelcome_ sitting here for hours, waiting to greet the world with him.

A single tear finally escaped Aziraphale’s eye. Crowley’s heart crumpled in his chest.

“Angel, I –”

“I know, dearest, I know.” Aziraphale bit his lip. Crowley didn’t know whether it was at the endearment, or just at admitting to himself the enormity of what this was. Either one was terrifying.

“I think, perhaps,” the angel continued hesitantly, glancing down at his mug again and surreptitiously wiping his cheek dry. “If you would be interested, since the weather is still holding and we’re allowed out a bit more now, it would be nice if we were to... go out together. To the park. Take a picnic, perhaps.”

Crowley opened his mouth to speak, and choked unexpectedly on a silent sob. Aziraphale looked at him again, and only then did he realise his own cheeks were no longer dry.

“That sounds wonderful, angel,” he managed eventually. “I would love to.”

“I would love to, too, Crowley.” Aziraphale swallowed and then set the mug of tea on the coffee table, and then carefully, deliberately scooted leftwards on the sofa, towards the demon. He reached out a hand, and let it rest gently over Crowley’s. “It would mean the world.”

Hell might be a rather difficult place to freeze over, but demons froze often – or at least, this particular one did. In this case, Crowley couldn’t move for a full minute, at least. When he finally did, he only had enough emotional capacity to splay his fingers ever so slightly, just so, so that Aziraphale’s would slot in neatly between them.

This was no spontaneous grab on a bus ride back to London. This was no the-world-just-ended-and-then-it-didn’t and we-might-be-dead-by-morning-but-we’re-alive-right-now hand-holding. This was no please-help-ground-me-to-reality grip. This was soft, thought-out, everything-will-be-okay and this-is-what-I-want hand-holding.

This wasn’t commemorating the end of something. It was signalling the start of a new era.

The angel curled their fingers together and smiled. He squeezed, and Crowley managed to squeeze back.

“A picnic, then,” Aziraphale said lightly, quiet in the vastness of the empty flat, deafening in Crowley’s hyper-focused ears. “That’ll be lovely. I should bring my Victoria sponge – well, one of them. And I made some bread we can use for sandwiches – which do you prefer, my dear, sourdough or tiger loaf?”

“Aziraphale.” Crowley’s voice broke free from his chest almost without him asking it to, as if his mouth was on autopilot. He gripped tight to the only solid thing in existence as he let whatever this was come spilling out. “I know everything’s still very... ngh, and I know it’s fast, and I know it’s hard, and you don’t ever have to say anything at all if you don’t want to, but I just need to say this now before I either lose my nerve or discorporate forever.”

Crowley only realised what he was about to say as he opened his mouth to say it, and by then it was far too late, because Aziraphale knew what it was going to be too. He could only watch as the dreaded sentence left him.

“I love you, angel. I love you so much.”

The world stopped spinning. He was certain, because that was the kind of thing he could feel, being a demon and all. Everything froze except for the two of them, and yet he couldn’t make time spin backwards, so this was the moment he was stuck with. Make or break. Win or lose. Heads or tails.

“I love you too, Crowley.”

And there wasn’t a hint of hesitation there, not even a flicker of fear. It was honest and genuine and _real_. And there he was, an angel holding a demon’s hand, smiling at him with the full force of all the true goodness in creation, telling him he loved him.

“I love you so much. Let’s go for a picnic.”

Now that was worth getting up at 5am for.


End file.
